[1][5][6] Ali's trial was considered unfair by Professor of Human Rights Law Christof Heyns,[7] and Amnesty International,[5] as well as French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls,[8][9] who called for the execution to be stopped.
[10] Ali's death sentence is presumed to have been overturned in April 2020, following several announcements from the Saudi government that people convicted as minors under 18 years of age were not to be executed[11] and he was finally released from prison on October 27, 2021.
[5] According to his father, the arrest was carried out by secret police ramming into his son with their vehicle on a moonless night, resulting in multiple fractures and other injuries.
[1] In September 2015, supporters in the United Kingdom, including Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn, put pressure on the UK government to ask Saudi authorities to stop the execution.
[1][15] Christof Heyns, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Benyam Mezmur, the chair of the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child, together with other UN human rights experts, also called on the Saudi government to stop the execution and called for al-Nimr to be given a fair trial.
[7] On 23 and 24 September, French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls requested Saudi authorities to cancel the execution sentence.
[18] Sheikh Nimr was arrested on 8 July 2012,[19] sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court on 15 October 2014 for anti-government activities,[20] and executed on or shortly before 2 January 2016.